When I saw the trailer for You Kill Me, I thought "Oh no, not another mobster getting in touch with his feelings film." After The Sopranos set the bar, no other film or show should even bother. But with the great cast and underrated director John Dahl (Red Rock West, Rounders) at the helm, I figured I'd give it a chance.

This film does exactly what I thought it would do. I've seen the style a hundred times before; dry, dark humor, mixed with violence, with an underlying sense of wittiness. The story was predictable; hitman Frank, played by Ben Kingsley, who was once unstoppable is going through a down period, because he's unhappy and an alcoholic.

He's sent to San Francisco by his mobster cousin to recover and become the old Frank. While there he meets the woman of his dreams, Tea Leoni, who makes him happy enough to kill again; and only in movie-land, doesn't have a problem with him being a hitman, because he's a good guy. Luke Wilson lends some comedy as Frank's AA sponsor. Meanwhile everything with the mobster family is falling apart in Buffalo. That was the most original part of the film, that much of it takes place in Buffalo, and that there is enough going on that constitutes a mob war. (Besides Buffalo 66, I don't think I've ever seen another film that's placed there.)

Overall it's not a bad film, just an unoriginal one. The performances are all good. The filmmaking is at a high-level. But it offered nothing new to the genre, every moment seemed scripted from another film of the type. Check out the far better Sexy Beast if you're looking to see Ben Kingsley play a gangster.